Re: JAMS ******-***** - Advice Request Date: 2023-03-05 08:07
Dear Prof. <...>,
As a matter of personal policy, I do not do any reviews for journals that would not publish my own work. I cannot consider myself qualified to maintain your "standards at the highest level" of which my own research output falls short.
Back around 1996, I reviewed a paper by Goncharov for JAMS. JAMS editor <...> was apparently quite satisfied with the quality of my detailed review. Subsequently in December 2011, my paper titled "Artin-Tate motivic sheaves with finite coefficients over an algebraic variety" was rejected by JAMS. The rejection letter I got from editor <...> read as follows:
"Dear Professor Positselski,
I am sorry to inform you that the Journal of the AMS will not publish your paper "Artin-Tate motivic sheaves over an algebraic variety".
JAMS receives many more good papers than can be accepted. I sent your paper to a referee for an initial impression. The report I got was that your paper does not meet the very high standards of JAMS, and perhaps would be more appropriate in a more specialized journal. In this situation it is better to make this decision now, without a full referee report, so you can publish your paper elsewhere without undue delay.
Sincerely,
<...>
Editor, JAMS"
Subsequently my paper was rejected by two other journals. It was only in Fall 2015 that my paper got finally accepted and published.
Now all I can say is that you can turn to people whose research work meets "the very high standards of JAMS" with any review requests. By your own admission, expressed in your decision to reject my paper, I am not one of such people.
Sincerely,
Leonid Positselski
On 2023-03-05 02:33, <...> (via EditFlow) wrote:
Dear Professor Positselski,
I am writing about the article
<...>
by <...>
submitted to the Journal of the American Mathematical Society. I am writing to ask if you would give us a first opinion of this paper, which you can find here:
https://ams.msp.org/articles/uploads/jams/submitted/...
The Journal of the American Mathematical Society editors are determined to maintain standards at the highest level. This means that a paper must be truly exceptional to obtain the unanimous approval from the editors, which is required for publication. We are not asking for a detailed report, although any details may be helpful. Rather we are asking for your quick appraisal of the value and quality of this paper, and whether it meets the high standards set for the Journal of the American Mathematical Society. If you are in favor of the paper, please suggest possible referees.
We receive many excellent papers that we are not able to publish (we publish only 1,200 pages per year). For this reason, if you do not think this paper meets the high standards set for the Journal of the American Mathematical Society, please inform me as soon as possible, so that I may inform the authors. I would appreciate hearing your comments and opinions within two weeks.
Please upload your response (or decline this request) at
https://ams.msp.org/refrep.php?...
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
<...>